King of Swords (The Starfolk) Read Free

Reality folded and shrank and swirled down to nothing.

    “I’m back.”
    The woman yelped. “Oh! You startled me.” She held a needle and thread in her gory hands; there was blood on her clothes and even her face.
    He raised his head enough to inspect the damage to his torso. He hadn’t lost anything vital, but two of the scratches reached the edge of his pubic hair. Mira had stitched him up in pink and blue and green silk like he was an embroideryproject. The bleeding had almost stopped, and his dick was behaving itself again.
    “Thanks,” he said. “That should do. I like the pink best.” He had the pain under control now. That was another trick humans couldn’t master.
    “I’m going to get jailed for practicing medicine without a license.”
    “I won’t tell.” He tried to sit up, and she pushed him back down.
    “Can you do that self-hypnosis trick again? It slowed your bleeding a lot. I felt your pulse, and your heartbeat went down to about thirty.”
    “As long as you promise not to hijack me to a hospital.”
    She nodded. “I promise, Sir Alien. What planet did you say you were from?”
    “I wish I knew,” he said truthfully. She hadn’t locked him in and started driving hell-for-leather, so he’d trust her for a little longer. “I’ll look back in an hour.”
    Focus…

    She had bandaged him up like a mummy and covered him with a blanket. Otherwise he was naked; he rubbed his feet together and felt the dried mud on them. She must have wrestled his dead weight around like a parcel to get him trussed up like this—it was intimate but not romantic, not even erotic. He was wearing nothing but his bracelet, and it would take a blowtorch to get that off him. Turning his head, he saw that she’d spread the ruins of his worldly goods out on the floor and the tiny kitchen counter: some clothes, a knife, a fork, a spoon, a groundsheet, a Swiss Army knife, a couple of cookingutensils, a money clip with twenty-five dollars in it. He wondered if she’d noted the absence of a wallet or ID. No shaving kit, either. She had brought in the folding chair and was sitting on it, thumbing through the
Complete Works of William Shakespeare
, but she must have been watching him.
    “How are you feeling?”
    “Much better, thank you.” He could hold the pain down to a tingle now, and he’d adjusted to the shock. He was alive, whereas he might have been dead and half eaten by now. It was another memory he’d keep with him for life, long might that be! He wondered if the scars would stay, but figured they’d probably disappear like all the rest had. Even the nail through his foot had left no trace. “Thank you
very much
.”
    She brought him a glass of water. He sat up and drank greedily.
    She said, “It’s from the pump, but I put some Aquatabs in it.”
    She was still worrying. He tried a goofy grin that he was rather proud of. “I never get sick, not like you humans.”
    “The bear ate half your left boot.”
    “That’s what killed it, then.” He wasn’t sure what
had
killed it.
    “The bike’s been recycled into paperclips. Your sunglasses were smashed.”
    “I’ll get by. I’m still alive, thanks to you. Nothing else matters.”
    “And your guitar. That was my clumsiness, I’m afraid. It wasn’t the bear.”
    “Then you’re a better music critic.”
    At last she smiled. “You amaze me. And so does your taste in reading material. The
Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Star Spotting for Beginners,
and Machiavelli’s
The Prince
? You have unusual taste, Alien.”
    “They all came out of library dumpsters. Please don’t call me that.”
    “Sorry. Rigel? That’s your home star?”
    “It’s just my name. I feel badly taking up your bed.”
    Mira laughed. “It’s about time I had a man in my bed again, but I’ll sleep up there on the shelf. You do your trance thing, because it seems to help you. We can move on in the morning. I won’t leave you here to walk. Which way were you